KABOOM! with Ceejay Writer

Ceejay Writer: Welcome one and all to the Aether Salon!
Ceejay Writer: Sera Puchkina is the R.F. Burton Library’s librarian, and a brave soul indeed for giving the Salon free rein of the first floor. It would be a nicety to show your support by dropping a little something in the library’s donation box near the front door.
Rory Torrance: a lizard?
Ceejay Writer: I encourage you to join the inworld Aether Salon group, for reminders of upcoming salons.
https://world.secondlife.com/group/cbdd8d19-4c68-802c-8523-a95ea4181afc
Ceejay Writer: You are also welcome to join my Ceejaytopia group for author, writing, and other literary event notices: Ceejaytopia
https://world.secondlife.com/group/d85c42ac-0831-7281-abe6-79f5ce24fc92
Ceejay Writer: The transcript of today’s salon will be posted on the website: https://aethersalonhome.wordpress.com The website’s front page also has links to join our Discord group, an application to be a salon presenter, and other handy links.
Ceejay Writer: We’re going to start today’s Salon with a time travel trip. Everyone buckle in, and loosen any restrictive clothing please. We are traveling back to May 18th, 1980, to just after 8:00 in the morning. Destination? My apartment, where a young version of me is settling in for a boring weekend day.
Ceejay Writer: Elaborate time machine sounds, followed by a loud POP And here we are! I’ll turn the narrative over to young-me for a while now:
Ceejay Writer: looks around in confusion at the nice-looking people who’ve suddenly appeared in her living room.
Ceejay Writer: It’s all right, young-me. Just tell us how your day is going, all right?
Toshiha とし葉: smiles.
Ceejay Writer: Well, okaaaay.
Ceejay Writer: It’s a chilly, cloudy, drizzling Sunday morning in Seattle. In other words, a normal day. Blondie’s “Call Me” is playing on KISW-FM. The Mr. Coffee machine is brewing up a fresh pot of dark roast coffee from Starbucks down by Pike Place Market. I’m groggy from staying out too late last night.
Ceejay Writer: I turn off the radio and turn on my little 1974 Toshiba Blackstripe 13” Color TV. Blah blah blah St Helens blah blah bulge in the side of the mountain. They’ve been yammering on about St Helens for a month now, ever since a couple of earthquakes in March and now it’s puffing out some steam.
Toshiha とし葉: oooo
Rory Torrance: should this ‘mister coffee’ be in a young lady’s apartment without a chaperone?
Ceejay Writer: He is welcome to come up to my place and see me anytime! 😀
Rory Torrance: oooh la la!
Ceejay Writer: But it’s no big deal. Just a couple of weeks ago, a helicopter carrying four guys landed on top of the mountain, 50 feet from the edge of the crater that’s been forming. Stan Wilson, a reporter from KATU in Portland, and the helicopter pilot were filmed just wandering around, chatting about the landslides, while the geologist that came along took some samples.
Ceejay Writer: Stan casually discussed the crevices opening up in the ashy-snowy surface while standing straddling a large crack. All of them, pilot, reporter, geologist, and film dude were so casual, even leaning over the edge to look down into the crater. They couldn’t land a loaded helicopter up there if it was actually dangerous, right?
Rory Torrance: you ARE familiar with this species are you not?
Toshiha とし葉: giggles
Ceejay Writer: sips coffee
Ceejay Writer: I don’t know how they even got permission to land up there. A red zone was set up on March 25th to keep people away from the mountain. Which is a joke! I know lots people who just drove around the road barricades. Even the locals in Toutle, Silverlake, and Woodland thought the authorities were making too much of the situation. They were making small fortunes selling maps showing where the open logging roads were. It was trendy to be able to say you got up close to the mountain.
Ceejay Writer: Then on April 3rd, Governor Dixie Lee Ray declared a state of emergency. That got the national guard involved. More barriers went up. Now we had a blue zone outside the red zone. As if that mattered. Even the loggers ignored them and it was business as usual.
Ceejay Writer: Now, here we are, with the news obsessing on “The Bulge” in the mountains north side again. I sigh. It’s like watching a pregnant woman getting ready to deliver. I’m just sipping my coffee and waiting impatiently for the entertainment news.
Ceejay Writer: The clock ticks over to 8:32
Ceejay Writer: BANG! What the heck was that? A car backfiring? Gunshot? I run to the window and look out, but I can’t see any commotion on Summit Avenue. And the noise seemed further south.
Ceejay Writer: (the slide show is just random background. Enjoy)
Ceejay Writer: It’s not long before the television goes into Special News Report mode. It’s announced that Mt. St. Helen’s bulge literally slid right down the side of the mountain, and then all hell broke loose.
Rory Torrance: well, a good fraction of hell, anyway…
Liz Wilner: waves to Rory and Svarga
Rory Torrance: smiles & waves back
Ceejay Writer: There goes my Sunday – Finally, I’m interested in what was happening on the mountain. I spin the television dial all day long, stopping at whatever channel had the best coverage of the eruption right then. The Mr. Coffee machine will brew me more coffee soon, for sure.
Ceejay Writer: Now and then throughout the afternoon, I look out my 3rd floor apartment window to see if ash is falling. But there isn’t any. I don’t yet know that the bulk of it is heading towards Eastern Washington. For Yakima and Ritzville, two of the hardest hit cities, tomorrow is going to be a Very Bad Day.
Toshiha とし葉: Ooooh
Ceejay Writer: Sounds of a time machine racing back up the timeline to 2025. POP!
Rory Torrance: plenty of kindling available for the winter…
Ceejay Writer: That “kindling” is still floating to this day, in heaped up piles here and there in the waterways.
Rory Torrance: nods
Ceejay Writer: Whew. We made it! If you want to learn more about the explosion and the main events of the days and weeks that followed, that’s easy to find on the internet. To get you started, here’s an excellent four-minute audio from NPR News. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/18/854829288/it-seemed-apocalyptic-40-years-ago-when-mount-st-helens-erupted
Ceejay Writer: But for now, let’s go off the beaten path, and dive into some surprising info and weird facts about Mt. St. Helens.
Ceejay Writer: Washington State University stored 97 barrels, containing seven tons of ash from the historic eruption, in a barn outside of Colfax, Washington. The barrels are still there today. WSU Professor Emeritus Dick Mack, who was actively teaching at the time of the eruption said, “The bulk of the ash that we collected was here in Pullman … it was on the roof of one of the biology buildings because it was a flat surface and it was easy to sweep it up.”
Toshiha とし葉: (KOMO news just posted on youtube today video footage of a 1980 interview with Dave Crockett, who filmed much of it up close), too! ^^)
Ceejay Writer: (KOMO is a really good news source! Thanks!)
Ceejay Writer: They’ve used some of the ash in plant growth experiments. (Full story at https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/mt-st-helens/wsu-stores-97-barrels-of-mount-st-helens-ash/293-08c932b0-c3d7-492a-a598-4af3f18a3c32)
Toshiha とし葉: Ooooo!!
Ceejay Writer: Just before the main eruption, the north face of the mountain slid away. That landslide holds the records as the biggest landslide in human history. 0.67 cubic miles of material moved 14 miles down the North Fork of the Toutle River. It moved at 70 to 150 miles per hour.
Rory Torrance: wow
Ceejay Writer: Big wow. And that explains so many deaths. Everyone underestimated its power.
Ceejay Writer: Mt. St. Helens was named after a British diplomat, NOT a saint. George Vancouver, a British naval explorer who charted the Pacific Northwest in the 1870s was a friend of Alleyne Fitzherbert, a British diplomat, who thankfully was known as Baron St. Helens. If the mountain had been named Mt. Fitzherbert, would we have loved it just the same?
Ceejay Writer: The mountain goes by many names. Native Americans use names that mostly refer to the smoke that sometimes comes out of the mountain. Variations include: Lawala Clough, Low-We-Lat-Klah, Low-We-Not-Thlat, Loowit, Loo-wit, Loo-wit Lat-kla, and Louwala-Clough.
Ceejay Writer: Local Native Americans have a legend that tells of a beautiful maiden named Loowit. The Great Spirit Sahale had two sons, Wyeast and Klickitat, who both fell in love with Loowit. She couldn’t choose between them. So the two sons fought each other over her, destroying villages and forests as they battled. Sahale was so upset by their behavior that he killed all three of them (did Loowit deserve that? I don’t think so!) He built a huge peaked mountain at each of the places where they fell. Loowit became Mt. St. Helens. Wyeast became Mt. Hood and Klickitat became Mt. Adams.
Ceejay Writer: Before the 1980 eruption, Mount St Helens sported eleven named glaciers: Loowit, Wishbone, Leschi, Forsyth, Ape, Shoestring, Nelson, Toutle, Talus, Swift, and Dryer. After the eruption, only Shoestring was left… partially.
Toshiha とし葉: wow
Ceejay Writer: It really did look like a shoestring, long skinny stripe down the side of the mountain.
Toshiha とし葉: Wow
Ceejay Writer: Just a year ago, a YouTuber with a channel called TheTekkitRealm attempted to start an Urban Legend. Da-Da-DUNNNNN, behold, “The Curse of Mount St. Helens” from YouTube Unsolved. Methinks he’s tried too hard. He just really, really wanted something Mt. St. Helensish for his video collection. It’s cheesy but sort of worth the laugh. It’s only 24 minutes out of your life. https://youtu.be/jadSz_FUeEk?si=jfu_XriT70cY8Hiw
Ceejay Writer: Harry R. Truman (not President Harry S. Truman) was the owner and operator of the Mt. St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake, in the shadow of the mountain. No amount of pleading could convince him to evacuate. He was 86 when he was killed near the mountain he loved, probably within a minute of the eruption. A 1981 movie, “St Helens”, starring Art Carney as Harry, is available to watch on YouTube. https://youtu.be/86l24zb9Pnw?si=r6ZJUdbGWz9p4B2z
Toshiha とし葉: Oooo
Rory Torrance: the only curse of mt saint helens was “dammit, look at all this ash in my yard!”
Oriella Charik: St Helens is a town in Lancashire, England
Toshiha とし葉: It looks like it had something against Oklahoma XD
Ceejay Writer: Didn’t know that, Ori!
Ceejay Writer: Rory, my company (HVAC wholesaler) at the time sold HUNDREDS of air filters of all kinds.
Rory Torrance: ooh i bet they did!
Ceejay Writer: That Oklahoma circle IS mysterious!
Toshiha とし葉: wow
Ceejay Writer: All the YouTube links I’ve shared are in my “May 18 1980” playlist at YouTube. Have fun prowling around in there! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxQzzO_oJjkNKlUKXhuW8uG9PwoQp8g_Q
Toshiha とし葉: 😀
Toshiha とし葉: Yay~
Ceejay Writer: That should save you having to keep all these links I’m tossing at you.
Ceejay Writer: I think there’s about 30 videos in there.
Ceejay Writer: A zillion ‘commemorative’ T-shirts came out within days of the eruption. Most of them featured bad artwork of a mountain and the word SURVIVOR in big letters. One stated “I skiied Mt. St. Helens 5-18-1980” and was riddled with razor-bladed cuts. One stated “Chicken Little Was Right!” Also popular was “Where Were You When The Mountain Blew?” But my favorite one was branded with, “St. Helen’s Organic Ash Co. – Re-established May 18, 1980, Washington State – Nation-Wide Distribution of Fine Volcanic Ash”.
Toshiha とし葉: heh
Rory Torrance: talk about gettting your ashes hauled…
Ceejay Writer: A trivia bit that Toshiha might appreciate. In previous years, Mt. St. Helens was knows as the Mount Fuji of the Northwest due to her perfect, snow-capped peak.
Toshiha とし葉: Nice! 😀
Ceejay Writer: A 1981 report, “Mount St. Helens Ash, Properties and Possible Uses” did its best to put a positive spin on the abundance of ash laying around. Possible uses mentioned include: toothpaste filler, linolium, fertilizer, waste treatment, poultry grit, metal polish, scouring powder, and dust abatement. Mostly though, the ash ended up as landfill, or in mason jars destined for hundreds of knick knack shelves, and in the production of souvenier kotchkes. I bought a beautiful glass ball ornament just a month after the eruption. It’s an interesting report, especially if you are into geology. You can download the PDF here: https://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_ri24_mount_st_helens_ash.pdf
Toshiha とし葉: Oooooh
Ceejay Writer: The ash really did work well in glassblowing.
Ceejay Writer: If you see something for sale on eBay or whereever, consider springing for it.
Ceejay Writer: Okay…. Joke time! What do you get if you cross a volcano with a lightbulb? A lava lamp! And would you look at that, I have set out an array of them. Please take the color you like best, with compliments of the Aether Salon.
Rory Torrance: lava lamps! now THERE is some mad science…
Wildstar Beaumont: 🙂
Ceejay Writer: In fact take all the colors you want!
Rory Torrance: how?
Rory Torrance: they dont appear to be for sale
Toshiha とし葉: oo hehe
Ceejay Writer: Try taking a copy
Ceejay Writer: If that doesn’t work I’ll set them for sale.
Rory Torrance: it does not appear to be an option
Ceejay Writer: Try now?
Rory Torrance: working now, thanks ever so!
Rory Torrance: thanks
Ceejay Writer: SL permissions make me crazy. I set them all for full perms including copy.
Ceejay Writer: Take a handful home!
Rory Torrance: yeah perms are tricky
Ceejay Writer: Thanks for coming to my TED talk, and hopefully haven’t made an ash out of myself. It would be magma-nanimous of you to applaud. Any questions? Anecdotes?
Rory Torrance: oh yes
Toshiha とし葉: claps!
Wildstar Beaumont: ♪♫♥ Applauds!!! ♥♫♪
Ceejay Writer: I had a lot of fun putting this one together, it brought back so many memories.
Rory Torrance: i was just a little green sprout living on oahu in 1960 when there was a major eruption of kilauea over on the big island
Ceejay Writer: Weirdly, today is a Sunday. Just like it was back then. We hit the mark perfectly there.
Toshiha とし葉: Today, I can report Seattle weather is sunny, partially cloudy ^^
Ceejay Writer: Wow, Rory!
Rory Torrance: my dad, a photography buff, had one of his air force buddies fly direclty over the volcano so he could take home movies
Ceejay Writer: Toshiha…. what a surprise!
Toshiha とし葉: It rained yesterday XD
Toshiha とし葉: Nice, Rory 😀
Ceejay Writer: Are those home movies still around?
Ceejay Writer: RAin! In Seattle! Shocking!
Rory Torrance: we have some spectacular footage of the eruption, plus interesting scenes of stuff like houses going up like matchsticks as the lava came down the mountainside
Rory Torrance: the lava in hawaiian volcanos is especially runny and moves more quickly than most
Ceejay Writer: Yeek. That’s awful stuff, but good to document.
Ceejay Writer: So, could you throw cornstarch at it to slow it down, then?
Rory Torrance: those little wood and paper japanese style houses were amazingly flammable
Ceejay Writer: I just bet.
Ceejay Writer: Ah, there’s my favorite picture.
Liz Wilner: when the volcanos in Iceland blow…sometimes stops air traffic for weeks!
Ceejay Writer: Those are crazy, Liz! Hmm. Somewhere in inventory I have a Tiny that’s a little volcano with googly eyes, and little airplanes around its base.
Toshiha とし葉: giggles
Rory Torrance: i dont believe there were many fatalities from the hawaiian eruptions, thats par for the course over there and everyone knows what to do. mt saint helens was far worse, im sure.
Ceejay Writer: Hee. Let me step behind the screen for a minute.

(I did a quick change into my volcano avatar. It’s a vintage 2010 design by Cutea Benelli of Grim Bros. Planes actively circle it, except those that have crashed due to airborne ash, the lava glows, and dense smoke spews everywhere. Also, the eyes are googly.)

Liz Wilner: LOL
Wildstar Beaumont: !!!
Liz Wilner: oh dear Lord
Rory Torrance: hahahaha
Ceejay Writer: can’t stop laughing
Wildstar Beaumont: LOL
Rory Torrance: mount googley-eyes!
Ceejay Writer: I’ve never had a reason to wear this. UNTIL NOW
Rory Torrance: that is truly wondrous
Liz Wilner: laughs!
Ceejay Writer: Cutea Benelli creation, of course
Liz Wilner: it’s perfect for today!
Rory Torrance: of course
Rory Torrance: love her stuff
Oriella Charik: ha ha
Ceejay Writer: I should go hit a mainland nightclub like this.
Toshiha とし葉: giggles
Toshiha とし葉: omg wow
Toshiha とし葉: The sound effect is nice too XD
Ceejay Writer: Class stuff, this!
Liz Wilner: love this
Ceejay Writer: So on this weird note…. thanks for being here with me today, friends!
Rory Torrance: a pleasure as always
Ceejay Writer: I may leave this on to scare myself on the next login.
Wildstar Beaumont: thank YOU Ceejay
Liz Wilner: ty Ceejay!
Rory Torrance: with lava like that, you can surely say you had a good run…
Ceejay Writer: I’d curtsey, but…
Oriella Charik: Thank you (coughs)
Ceejay Writer: Im blocking the screen!
Wildstar Beaumont: good night everyone
Rory Torrance: good night beaumont
Ceejay Writer: Goodnight Wild!
Rory Torrance: lovely gown, liz!
Liz Wilner: oh ty!
Ceejay Writer: I hope you all have enjoyable evenings! Got your lava lamps? I’m going to pick them up.
Oriella Charik: Good night (wipes ash off clothes)
Liz Wilner: lol
Rory Torrance: enjoyed the slide show very much
Liz Wilner: have a great evening everyone!
Rory Torrance: good evening or other temporal period to all
Ceejay Writer: Off to make dinner. If I can reach the stove, I feel weirdly short.
Liz Wilner: laughs
Liz Wilner: you should smoke some meat…since yu have it going…LOL
Ceejay Writer: Waves and flows hotly to the sea…..